chinese led lights

[bhazard451]

Originally Posted by WinnipegDragon

Well my buddy here at work is an electrical engineer and he's going to bring his meter in to work tomorrow, I'm going to bring the light, and we are going to figure out the pinout on the pot connector.

I'll report in once we know what cable is which.

It will either be from the pot connector wires, or one of the red/black from the driver.

On a meanwell driver, there is led+ led- and dimmer+ dimmer-. If you can figure out which ones are dimmer+ and dimmer- (if they even exist) here, this would be a huge step.

Then we have to see if it is compatible with a PWM signal (Typhon) or VDC (Apex). I might order a typhon to test just for this once the right wires are established.

[WinnipegDragon]

If it's just a pot I think it has to be VDC right?

[bhazard451]

Originally Posted by WinnipegDragon

If it's just a pot I think it has to be VDC right?

I would assume pot/analog/vdc/0-10v/dimmable driver, yes. Not 100% certain.

[WinnipegDragon]

Originally Posted by bhazard451

I would assume pot/analog/vdc/0-10v/dimmable driver, yes. Not 100% certain.

Well hopefully we'll know tomorrow.

[jfeva0049]

WinnipegDragon, what size tank are you using the A4's on?? and how do you like the coverage of them on it?

[WinnipegDragon]

Tank isn't up yet, it's still being built.

It's 18x18x16 so this is going to be massive overkill, thus my desire to really have good control over dimming.

[bhazard451]

I tested the lights out before I go about hanging them later today after work. They are bright!! Easily as bright as my 250mh on the tank now, if not brighter.

I'm very glad I went with dimmable. You can dial in a nice mixture of color to your choosing.

[rad1687]

How does the shimmer compare to the 250mh?

[Ianwraab]

Originally Posted by ghrorick

E-mailed sam the other day. He told me to get 3 a6s for a 180 gallon (6x2x2)and 2 a4s for a 120 gallon (4x2x2). I understand 2 a4s for the 120 (which I am debating getting 2 a6s since this is a sps tank and I want to get some violet and uv as well). doesn't 3 a6s sound a little excessive for a 180 gallon? I guess I could go that route and switch out the corals in each tank (have soft corals in the 180 gallon).

Yeah I'd go for 3... Start with 2 but I think 3 will look a lot better

[jefftse]

I'm going with 3 a8s once we figure it out the dimmer

[AcroBluz]

I decided to go ahead and get 3x a4's at the same time as the 120w's. I am getting mine customized so it will be a few weeks until mine ship.
Did any of you get hit with US custom fee?

[bhazard451]

Originally Posted by AcroBluz

I decided to go ahead and get 3x a4's at the same time as the 120w's. I am getting mine customized so it will be a few weeks until mine ship.
Did any of you get hit with US custom fee?

No fees.

[customreefer]

Originally Posted by AcroBluz

I decided to go ahead and get 3x a4's at the same time as the 120w's. I am getting mine customized so it will be a few weeks until mine ship.
Did any of you get hit with US custom fee?

It should only take them 3 or 4 days to customize, and shipping is extremely fast. Mine was shipped Monday morning, and they are supposed to arrive today!

[bhazard451]

Originally Posted by customreefer

It should only take them 3 or 4 days to customize, and shipping is extremely fast. Mine was shipped Monday morning, and they are supposed to arrive today!

They use DHL International Express service to deliver this quickly, which is about $50-60 of the price. If you take that into consideration, the lights are quite a bargain. Normal airmail service would take at least 2-4 weeks.

[bhazard451]

Originally Posted by customreefer

It should only take them 3 or 4 days to customize, and shipping is extremely fast. Mine was shipped Monday morning, and they are supposed to arrive today!

Take pics. You're one of the first with UVs in them. Would love to see and hear impressions.

[WinnipegDragon]

Yeah Canada customs is normally brutal, but I got my lights in 5 days via DHL and the total duty fee was $15.

I've been looking over the Apex hookup and I'm pretty sure my buddy and I have this figured out, still have to confirm the pinout but it looks promising. Sadly my Apex is not here yet

[Amoore311]

Hopefully everything works out. As I'm eagerly waiting to order these lights myself, pending they work with the Apex controller.


That being said:

My tank is a custom 36" x 36" x 18" rimless. How many fixtures to light this bad boy? The tank is going to be all sps for the most part. I was thinking 2, but I want to make sure.

[customreefer]

Originally Posted by bhazard451

Take pics. You're one of the first with UVs in them. Would love to see and hear impressions.

Actually, I didn't end up getting the UV's. After ordering them and paying for them, Hendy told me that the 6 UV's in the fixture didn't look good. So he suggested 48 blues and 24 whites, which is what I went with. They did sent me 15 UV Led's separately, which is kinda useless because I have no clue how to solder, so I asked for a refund to my Paypal account. Still waiting on that one.

[AcroBluz]

I ordered my a4s with:
400nm-4,white 12000k-20 on switch 1

royal blue 460nm-24 on switch 2.

[nrosdal]

Originally Posted by WinnipegDragon

Yeah Canada customs is normally brutal, but I got my lights in 5 days via DHL and the total duty fee was $15.

I've been looking over the Apex hookup and I'm pretty sure my buddy and I have this figured out, still have to confirm the pinout but it looks promising. Sadly my Apex is not here yet

cant wait to see pics! if you don't mind saying... how much did the 2 cost in canadian?

[tankaddict]

Does anyone know if they offer more colors than just the RB,W and Uv? I would think they have blue also.reallywanting to pick up the A6.

[WinnipegDragon]

Originally Posted by nrosdal

cant wait to see pics! if you don't mind saying... how much did the 2 cost in canadian?

I actually just ordered the one. Landed, with DHL brokerage, duty, etc, it was about $250CDN.

[bhazard451]

Took some pictures.

The light itself is excellent. Compared to Metal Halide shimmer, I'll need to get used to LED shimmer. Since both blue and white shimmer, you get a kind of multicolored shimmer effect. Looks great, very happy with it.

If we can get sunrise/sunset working, it would be icing on the cake.

30% both lights



100% Blue (pics don't do it justice)



100% White



100% Both (24:24) I'd say it looks around 14-18k

[Mussin]

Ok guys there seems to be alot of option out there. Im getting ready to buy two boxes for my 90. I would like them to be dimable, what would you reccomend??


Jeremy

[McLoki]

We purchased the the following for a 60 gallon cube (24x24x24) seahorse tank (that is why we chose LED- there were heat concerns with most other lighting options). We went the cheap route off of e-bay because we mainly wanted to keep plants and softies in the tank (with the seahorses) so if they were not as bright as advertised, it would not matter. Also I wanted dimmable so we could adjust the color somewhat to suit our taste. We have had them for a couple of weeks now and are very happy with them.


The LED we purchased was one of the e-bay fixtures as follows: 3 watt LED's, dimmable, 55 LED's (even mix of white/blue), 120watt (spin is running 3 watt LED at 2.2 watts max to help them last longer - actual is they were to lazy to upgrade the power supply when they updated the LED's from 2 watts to 3 watts)